Expression
by Flicker.Rain
Summary: Lucy's thoughts on the expression that Igneel makes when Natsu finally meets him again-based off of panel on Chapter 401


_Spoilerz: DON"T READZ IF YOU HAVEN"T READ CHAPTERS)!...i meant 401..._

_Well, actually you can read it even if you haven't, you just won't get what I'm talking about...or maybe you will...Dunnoz what you might _

think, though I haven't put anything major to the current Fairy Tail plot in this FanFic...

_**Fairy Tail and its characters belong to Hiro Mashima and these words belong to me.**_

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**Expression**

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I've seen that look before.

It's the kind that my mother used to give to me when I was a child, usually whenever I asked for her to do something that was utterly impossible. She would always say _I'll try my best_ and make an attempt to do whatever I asked her to do.

Make a rainbow. Give me a desired haircut. Stitch together a teddy bear. rawr

She never used any of her Celestial Spirits in each one of her attempts; she understood that I wanted _her_ to do it, and not someone else, even if they were great playmates when my mother wasn't around. Kindness in every way imaginable for me.

But she had wanted to rely on herself to bring me some form of happiness because it really was the thought that counted the most in the world. So even when the rainbow never appeared, or the haircut turned out to be a real mess, or the poor teddy bear's entire anatomy was wrong, I thanked her for trying as hard as she could because she had done so _for me. _

Whenever she gave me her finished product, I would always—_alway_s—tell her that I was thankful because I really was. Then she would always smile and promise to make that product better eventually, even if it took years and every single second doing so.

She had managed to do the first one, after several weeks of thinking around a simple solution to making a rainbow. The day that my mother made rainbows with me, she sprayed the flower garden and called for me to look at the shimmering rainbow created in the dispersion of light. When I asked for rainbows that would last forever in the next moment, she had lugged out a box containing sticks of colored wax, colored pencils, paintbrushes, paint buckets, and large scrolls of paper to make several long but everlasting rainbows, immortalized through hours of our efforts.

The second one, she had had to do over several months and occasionally needed to purchase potions that regenerated hair, so that she could actually create the haircut I had always wanted. Once, she had spent several hours fussing over one side of my head until that area had been in all definitions of the word _perfect_, but then she had snipped off too much on the other side—which she immediately utilized the potions to regrow that strand. That usually had the most odd effects on my hair; the thick blonde tresses had turned into various shades of other colors on the wheel. After her twentieth attempt, when I had spent all my giggles and couldn't stand another stomach ache from laughter, I had told her that I rather liked having temporary pink or purple or green hair.

Despite years passing by after forming her original promises, she still tried to fulfill them—even when the time limits had already been long over.

I remember her sitting in bed, pulling out the fluffy cotton stuffing that Aries had kindly provided from the soft fabric my mother had used to make my teddy bear. She had pulled out all the seams and snipped at the excess cloth that had been used to create extra limbs for the stuffed animal. She had laid out all the materials that she planned to use to recreate her previous disaster, preparing to put it all back together again in one perfected form.

She had pulled the corners of her mouth up, and had the audacity to stare straight into my eyes when she had said, _"Watch me, Lucy. I'll make the cutest, cuddliest teddy bear in the entire world, just for __**you**__."_

Except she had died before she could do that.

I can hear my mother's voice, echoing inside my head, when I hear you silently consent to the promise that Natsu has set up for you, Igneel. You're promising the same way that she promised me, and I can already tell by that face you're making as your son is speeding away to attack the man you've sent him to defeat, that _you're not going to keep your promise._

He's waited just for you for so many years, Igneel, and you're just going to disappear as soon as everything that needs to be accomplished is actually accomplished?

You're not going to stay and have that long chat with him, are you? You're going to leave him again in some way, whether it's giving your life up to eliminate Acnologia like a _coward_, because you don't want to face your own son. You don't want to give him the answers that he's been waiting for since the day you left him with only a scarf as a memento of yourself and the years you spent raising him.

There's no need for you to shove him away, just because you're afraid that you'll see hatred in his eyes when those eyes look into your own, Igneel. He's spent the past seven years—fourteen, if you want to get _technical_—searching for you and I don't have a doubt in my head that he's only going to give you a gaze that you've remembered and kept in your heart like a sacred treasure.

The gaze that only children can give the parents that they love so very much.

And he's missed you _so very much_, Igneel—you're the only person he would ever talk about with such reverence, and you should listen to what he says about you. He dubs you the best father in the whole of Earthland, and he's never given up faith in either finding you or having you return to him. He's constantly praising you in the recognizable moments of when you cross his mind, smiling with the biggest grin that I have ever seen.

So Igneel, don't wear _that _expression—not the expression that my mother made when she swore me that promise with the teddy bear. Don't pretend that you don't know that you won't stay long enough to tell Natsu every answer that he's ever wanted to hear from your mouth specifically. Thank Mavis that you've pushed him to face the other direction, towards the enemy, because that _expression _would disappoint him more than anything that you've ever done to him would.

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A/N: I was reading Chapter 401, and I was looking at the last panel on one of the pages (where it's just Igneel's face, and he's looking to the right, and he kind of looks kind of sad :[ and Natsu's going off about promises while he's flying towards Mard Geer...dat panel).

So...yeah...wow my first FanFiction post wasn't even a planned one...uhm...

Please leave a comment :D


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